US Government As Represented by the Secretary of the Army

United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

Anthony P Antonuzzi

Richard S Herman

Donald M Lawson

William E Hagel

Donald J Carignan

The invention relates to lock mechanisms by which a missile or analogous tem may be prevented from undergoing an undesired launch or ignition. Specifically, the invention is a rotating lock mechanism which may be rotated in precise clockwise and counterclockwise steps by an electrical stepper motor or other source of precise rotation, in response to a predetermined sequence of electrical pulses.

High speed lock mechanism

There is disclosed an initiator assembly for a ballistic missile system to ffect fluid flow of a gas from a source thereof to user equipment disposed in a housing therefor including gas inlet and outlet conduits and comprised of a rotor member journalled for rotation in the housing and formed with a mass of an eccentric weight distribution with respect to the axis of rotation and wherein the rotor is provided with an explosive assembly ignited by a striker assembly activated by launch acceleration of the missile and wherein a drive piston of the explosive assembly fractures a closure element disposed in one of said gas conduits.

Initiator assembly

A hardened electromechanical switch is disclosed. When appropriate electrical contacts and pick-offs are aligned, four switches close. The possible number of switch combinations selectable are 4095 based upon a base eight counting system. The switch has a counter section and a memory section. The counter section uses an odometer like device based upon octal. Each counter wheel of the counter section has an electrical pick-off that interacts with the memory section. In the memory section, a plurality of octal numbers, four, are entered into and locked thereon such that each counter set disk, four, therein has one octal number thereon. Electrical contacts are placed on the counter set disks of the memory section and these touch the pick-offs of the counter wheels which will simultaneously close on the four contacts of the counter set disk in only one of the 4095 combinations noted above.

Growing community of inventors

Stoneham, MA, United States of America

Anthony P Antonuzzi